Babbdi is a walking simulator game developed by Sirius Lemaitre and Leonard Lemaitre, released in December 2022. Though the target audience is not specified, I’d guess that the game was designed for players who are at least 13 years of age and older, as the overall atmosphere and characters are quite dark and eerie. The game is available on Steam, and I played on my personal laptop.
Babbdi employs a single player versus game pattern. The player walks around the map from a first-person POV, completely in control of where and in which direction to walk, who the player speaks to, and which mystery items the players picks up. Though Babbdi is a single player game, I’d argue that there’s a sense of fellowship through the support and clues from the people who haven’t left the town yet. For example, Ivano, one of the first residents of the town that I got to speak to, instructed to “take his club and hit surfaces with it.” Hitting surfaces with the club allows the player to travel / jump large distances, which is crucial in a place like Babbdi, since there were so many floors and layers to the town, and the player wasn’t able to climb walls or fly. Another resident, Jeanine, didn’t offer many clues, but offered support:
As creepy as Babbdi is, the residents try to help the player leave, and the more walking the player does, the more opportunities there are to experience fellowship. While the goal is to find a way out, since “you cannot fail a task in a way that forces you to repeat it, and you cannot die” (Clark), the game lasts for as long as the player wants it to. In this way, walking is the primary way that the player can explore the map and uncover the beauty of the game. For example, if it weren’t for walking around and meeting people throughout the map, I wouldn’t know that a ticket is required to leave Babbdi, for the description details that the main goal is to leave the town, but never says how. These details are revealed only through exploration.
Because Babbdi depends heavily on a player’s exploration of the map, the game naturally employs Discovery to evoke fun. Each direction is a possible way to walk and discover new items, people, or clues to secure a train ticket to leave Babbdi, but it also may be a dead-end. I’d also argue that especially because a map isn’t provided at the start of the game (and is rather an item that must be discovered), Challenge contributes to the fun of the game as well. I was surprised by how challenged I felt by the game because the only thing I was doing was walking, but the dark atmospheres and dead-ends kept me on my toes. Whether there were physical challenges (pathways that were unreachable simply by walking or jumping) or mental challenges (trying to decipher the unusual way that Babbdi inhabitants made conversation), these challenges were what kept me motivated to keep playing. The sense of Fantasy throughout Babbdi also contributed to the fun of the game, because the world was so different from my own. The town reminded me of a creepy, less appealing version of Minecraft. The setting was deeply mysterious and spooky, and in the first few minutes of the game, I was just glad a friend was near me because I kept anticipating a jump-scare. I wanted to know more about what I was getting myself into, but felt afraid to walk around. Yet, after sticking it out for a little while, I realized that this setting is exactly what keeps me in the game — because it’s so barren and sparse, finding a way out is obviously a priority; walking is the only way out. Not to mention, the typography and jumbled ordering of letters contributed to the eerie nature of Babbdi as well, and also kept me immersed in the game.
Though Babbdi wouldn’t be my game of choice, I think the developers did a decent job designing the map to sufficiently motivate the player to escape the town. However, there are a few things I’d change. First, I think it’d be interesting to change the game such that the map is one of the first things that the player finds, since it doesn’t give the plot away entirely, but gives just enough detail so that the player stays hooked. Potentially even adding on the map where the residents of Babbdi are located, so the player knows where to go to discover new clues, could be a nice addition as well. I think this could contribute to the Discovery type of fun, as players would have a better sense of direction on which uncharted territory to explore and a better grasp of where they’ve been / where they haven’t. Making a game too challenging is just as damaging as making a game too easy, and I think this would be a strategic way to make the game more accessible. Second, there doesn’t seem to be any clear rules that restrict actions or determine effects, but there is a clear inventory element of the game which allows the player to keep track of the mystery items collected, as well as tasks to complete. It isn’t clear at the beginning of the game, whether collecting all items and checking off all points of the checklist are necessary to “win” the game (i.e. escape Babbdi). I think it’d be worthwhile for the developers to make this more explicit, since this feature certainly contributed to the fun and narrative of the game, but could confuse players and demotivate them to complete their main task. Doing so would provide purpose to this mechanic, and maintain player retention.
Cited:
Clark, Nicole. 2017. “A Brief History of the ‘Walking Simulator,’ Gaming’s Most Detested Genre.” Salon. November 11, 2017. https://www.salon.com/2017/11/11/a-brief-history-of-the-walking-simulator-gamings-most-detested-genre/.
